BEHOLD The BOOSTMONSTER! - World’s Greatest DH Bike!? With 300mm of travel!
300 millimeters of travel, 49 pounds, the best of the old school mixed with top of the line modern components all the clearance you could ever want, easily the most unique and possibly the greatest DH bike I've ever built up a 2003 Marzocchi Super Monster and an 05 Norco a-line, this is the Boostmonster! you may notice it looks a bit different from the last time I showed this to you last october I revealed to you guys this whole bike build but it was nowhere near complete at that point I want this bike to reach its full potential and that means upgrading all of the parts to the best that they can be so for the last six months I've been doing just that starting off with the front wheel turns out these gazzaloddis are more for looks at this point than anything else I'm after performance for this build first and foremost after that would be looks and after that would be weight so the new wheel set I'm putting on here is made of hope pro 4 hubs laced to dt swiss fr 560 rims I'm going with a 2.6 magic mary on the front and it's set up tubeless I would love to put something fatter on here but I haven't really found anything modern with this level of grip in 26 inch though so I put these big 223 mil trp rotors on here because this bike deserves the best braking power however I was surprised at how impossible it was to find a working adapter it'd always be a bit lopsided never straight on the rotor so I ended up deciding to actually put back on the stock rotors because at least I knew that they worked and the same goes for the rear wheel as well even though I technically had it working I just thought you know what I'm gonna try out the original rotors for now if I really want more breaking power I can figure that out later I ordered a full shimano saint drivetrain they've always treated me very well so I just got my local shop to install that for me along with the new rear wheel I also put a 2.5 wire bead magic mary on the back put a tube in that just like how I set up my other bikes I decided to go with a seven speed setup here because I figure this really is just geared for downhill anyways so I shouldn't need as many gears and as you can see I pimped it out with an oil slick chain the rear end is noticeably lighter after all that getting the suspension dialed on this bike is the trickiest part of the whole build particularly with the rear shock the first problem is finding stiff enough coils that'll support me I weigh about 175 pounds and this 411 pound olin's coil was the stiffest I could find for a manitou revox shock unfortunately that wasn't quite good enough but there's also an 8 inch and a 9 inch setting to test out there's different dials and progression settings on the shock itself and I was testing it all see the thing is bike manufacturers are not really making bikes with this 10.5 by 3.5 size shock anymore which means there's less and less of those sized shocks being made so there's just less options as time goes on I haven't figured out other options as I'll get into in a sec and of course by using this longer rear shock that's how we're getting extra travel on this bike to match the super monster and that is what we rebuilt next there were some knocking sounds similar to what my regular monster t was doing before we rebuilt that we tried to measure how much oil was already in the legs okay I think I'm right by how much oil is in here which was around 350 355 and we decided to go with 400 milliliters in each leg with 10 weight oil the spring is too long I can't take it out I just don't understand what's going on too much travel oh man lots of travel I like that that feels good yeah and one more thing while we're here I bought a new hanger for this bike the original one had been a little bit bent and straightened out again but why don't we put on something brand new instead there we go and a nice final touch for this drivetrain will be an stfu system to keep it quiet so with all those upgrades it was time to test out this bike before the winter comes to really see what kind of progress we've made so far with all these changes we've already shaved off three pounds whoa kind of boosted me a little far whoa that is a bit different that was interesting I felt like I was being boosted farther than normal it's kind of weird I came a little bit late in the day today because now the rain has come which sucks but that's okay we're just gonna really test out how the fork is going to perform now since we rebuilt it and we put more oil in it just get a feel for it also see what the rear suspension is like if I blow through it or not so let's test this thing out I did put the rear shock in its 8 inch travel setting which makes it feel a little stiffer which is why I'm curious to see how this feels all right good stuff I'm still suspicious that the rear might be a little a little soft you know yeah just like all the suspension it's not exactly helping you jump maybe it's nice to land on but a bit funny to jump on now in terms of front travel it actually looks very similar to how much I used before before we rebuilt it and there is maybe more oil in it this wasn't really the best conditions to test out the new tires since everything was just wet and slippery anyways but the fork was feeling great not too soft not really too stiff as for the rear shock in its 8-inch setting I didn't really care for it very much it felt like it didn't give me enough sag while also not giving me enough support either the whole bike is just kind of a bit too linear is what I'm figuring this time though the suspension is back in the nine inch position which is going to be its permanent setting because it's just better there more travel I admit it is kind of lame riding these smooth flowier trails with this bike but for now this is just for the sake of testing the suspension and making sure it all feels right it's also really interesting to see how the bike handles on stuff like this well that is sick cornering on this bike is one of its weaknesses since it is such a high center of gravity but some of these corners I was making them work pretty well so I'm still finding here the rear shock is just not supporting me enough so this is where I'm gonna start looking at some other shock options so I can tell that uh the high center of gravity is making cornering worse so what I'm gonna do to really figure out this rear suspension is I'm gonna get this bike analyzed so I took some nice pictures to clearly see the linkage in both the eight inch and nine inch travel settings and I hired someone who's gonna be able to give me a full write up and tell me exactly how this suspension path works the amount of progression it has the leverage ratio pedal kick back anti-squat all sorts of great information I'll let you read this whole right up on the screen if you want but to summarize there's an okay amount of progression it could really use more but the real reason for why I would bottom out so easily is because it does not ramp up at the end you can see that blue line kind of flattens out there so with the coil shock once I reach about 80 travel there's not that much stopping me from bottoming out it's really cool being able to see all this other information about pedal efficiency anti-squat chain growth axle path he was also able to determine that it's 279 millimeters of rear travel when the shock is in the nine inch position which is basically 11 inches you could also determine the head tube angle is about 64.4 degrees now of course I've been measuring the sag on every single spring in different setting that I've tried on this bike so I could really figure out what is going to work and I was surprised to find that with this 411 pound coil I was getting about 21 sag which is not too soft but yet because the bike doesn't ramp up much it wasn't good enough I would still be able to bottom out a little easily I would say that I'm pretty happy with like a 20 or 25 sag however with this bike I'm gonna need stiffer coils which means I'm not gonna get that much sag for the fork we're measuring about 20 percent honestly I would prefer it to be a little bit softer but there's not really anything I can do about that the compression dials on this fork don't really do much either and this is where I decided to put on the fox van r shock because I got more options I got a 450 pound coil and even 500. I got it rebuilt at suspension works
and I even got them to put in the firm compression valving that in combination with the stiffer spring options this should be a good option at least for now it's time to test out this new setup on some big jumps yeah yeah wow yeah it feels like more balanced I find so much all right let's try the boost monster here again first time trying out the uh newly rebuilt fox van r with the firm compression valving put in still keeping with the 400 pound coil so I can really see how much better that's gonna feel and check it out wesley bought himself an old specialized demo seven so we can have ourselves a bit of an old-school sash here on the plow let's try the 35-footer this time yeah yeah that was sick getting slow-mo clips of me landing is going to be some of the most interesting footage to really see how the suspension is handling it since I can't always tell what's going on just by the feel of it you went for it the suspension on wesley's demo 7 was definitely set up too soft for him he was bottoming out a lot yeah I bottomed the rear out that time so I learned the 400 pound coil is not good enough even with the firm compression valving I'm gonna have to try the 450 pound coil hopefully that's going to be good enough I could just feel the rear just like knock yeah dude these old-school bikes they pop you good yeah just all that suspension to land on it was like no problem all right let's uh swap bikes for a quick little all right yo this thing feels good yeah yeah that's sick dude yeah this bike was pretty sick it's just a little soft but otherwise it's cool it's too soft this is this just feels like a bouncy board yeah it's so awesome hilarious it's like riding a pillow down the mountain I know unfortunately we weren't able to finish our ride today because wesley had a pretty bad crash he ended up breaking his wrist so he'll be out for the next few months my handlebar got caught in my shirt hey my wrist feels frozen I'm really curious to know what's the geometry of the boost monster the reach the stack wheelbase so we measured the original stock bike since it's not that easy to find that information online and now let's compare it to the boost monster say about 423. 12.28 is what I've got 28 794 front center 435. that's shorter than before I don't know i'd say about 365 I think that's very safe yeah you're right about 637 yeah now you can see the reach is pretty short and that stack is a bit high it creates a rider area distance that is very comparable to my other bikes however I would much prefer to have a longer reach and a shorter stack to create the same rad but that's just how old bikes were shorter reach higher stack and when it comes to the head angles the stock bike had around a 63.5 while the boost monster now has about 64.5 oh yeah and I decided to put on a title seat and seat post I'm pretty stoked on how this looks and of course putting that 450 pound coil is going to be the best option I have right now unfortunately a 500 pound coil does not look like it's gonna fit it's long enough that this ring up top is gonna end up hitting the part of the frame all right guys so I'm just gonna do a few trails with the boost monster here we're gonna do the same line that we did back when we rode my um my rm9 with the super monster there's some fun bench cut some fun steep sections and uh it should be a fun line so let's do it so this is one of those runs where I uploaded the full uncut version on my boostmaster raw channel but for the sake of this video I'll just show you a few of the highlights right on feeling smooth oh yeah they really built up the landing I want to see if I can hook this to flat so I don't know if you remember but when I first took out the rm9 with the super monster my friend josh huck this to flat it's pretty sketchy and quite a hard impact even on eight inch travel bike now with this boost monster I'm curious to see how it feels just send it should be sick have a speed one short yeah that's not even too bad that should be totally doable oh yes yes that was sick i think that might be the most I use my fork I was sick I suppose the advantage to having like one of my modern bikes is that just everything like the geometry would just be more proper fitting you know like I've got the suspension but it's still a bit short and high it's just not as agile to just like do unique janky hucks but this worked pretty good let's uh let's do it again that was a little harsh that's one thing I noticed after reviewing the footage is that the rebound on my fork was set too fast it was causing a bit of a harsher feeling on my arms because it wanted to return back a little too quickly and even though I couldn't really feel it you can tell in the footage I was really bottoming out the rear there that one didn't feel as smooth so let me share something kind of funny that I found out obviously this trail is really flowy and smooth definitely not something you'd need 12 inches of travel for not to mention 49 pounds and high center of gravity and everything but what I love to do is compare footage with other bikes on the same trails and yes as you'd expect I was riding it a lot better compared to when I was on the rm9 that shouldn't really be a surprise but what might be a surprise to some of you is that when I compared the footage to my enduro bike riding the same trail it was very comparable my transition patrol is basically perfect for this kind of trail feels amazing and yet here I am going just as fast on my excessive boost monster bike and I would argue I'm actually going a tad faster on the boost monster and I have to say I actually was kind of hoping that would be the case just to further legitimize this bike because obviously it's so excessive how many people are actually going to take this thing seriously well I'm taking this bike seriously and I especially can't wait to compare this bike to my 8 inch travel bikes on actual downhill techie trails that's going to be really interesting to see i was feeling really good that was probably some of the best riding I've done so far with this bike the trail was running mint but now I want to look at this drop right here every time I would ride it it never felt like it had a steep enough landing for this bike it should be pretty chill all right it's sick so I did slow down the rebound and you just use these dowels here you gotta use a little screwdriver I just uh I put it as slow as possible which is just in that plus direction I'll show you what it's like when it's in its fastest position fastest rebound now let's go all the way to the slowest honestly there's not that much adjustability i don't know if you can tell the difference it's not the biggest difference honestly but yeah so finally I think that the bike is set up well enough it can handle some proper gnarly trails I decided to check out jolly rancher in bear mountain mission bc you can tell people don't ride it very much it wouldn't be all that fun on an enduro bike because of how rocky and just rough it is which is what makes it perfect for this bike that was like the sickest thing ever like I was just charging just I just had extra confidence I could not do that on my eight inch travel bike with that much like speed there was some gnarly stuff like just big big rocks I was not worried my fork was able to eat it up it was freaking nuts you're hollering I just charged I was like I'm going straight down it was actually so sick yeah oh my goodness you sounded soaked you're cooking there's like rocks falling all over the place when you come down oh my goodness yeah the double black tech and maybe even single black tech will definitely be the best suited trails for this bike I cannot wait to try this bike on more gnarly trails like north shore whistler man this is exciting I have since actually ordered a new rear shock for this bike which I think is going to be even better yet with more adjustments and spring options than what this fox fan are offers so I'll have to update you guys on when that gets ready and the final weight after all the little changes 49 pounds I'm pretty happy with that weight considering what this bike is and of course I gotta test this thing out in my backyard boostmasters bungalow now that we're building more and more we'll always have some fun stuff to ride here in my backyard so one of the reasons why I'm able to do crazy projects like this is because I'm independent and I don't have bike sponsors instead I have things like patreon where people like you can pledge to be monthly and keep me independent and doing really awesome projects like this you also get perks like bonus content and early content extended cuts so I just wanted to shout out my patreon page in case you guys really like what I'm doing here and want to see more content like this thank you all so much for watching this video all the way to the end I really hope you enjoyed it let me know in the comments below what you thought of this video what do you think of this bike do you have any suggestions on what I should do to it to make it better thank you all for watching and I'll see you guys next time
2022-04-22 08:48
